No. I think I'll wait to try them out. I don't think that they will compete with $100 headphones but if they are 80% of that for 1/3 the price I'll be satisfied.

kaboom wrote:

I have to believe that Apple wouldn't have made a big deal out of the EarPods if they weren't (substantially?) better than the old standards. And as long as they're better that's plenty good enough for me.

And there IS incentive for Apple to make them better. They have to know that people blow through headphones fairly often. I would guess moderate to heavy users would replace them at least once a year. When they shop for a replacement set Apple wants them to buy EarPods and not another manufacturer's headphones.

Apple has made a big deal out of improvements to the stock headphones at least a couple of times in the past (from memory. Maybe it was only once, when Steve said something like, "This time we really nailed it."). And each time, they turned out to be mediocre, which I actually think is fine. I'm just saying that people shouldn't get their hopes up. They're likely a low margin item that Apple throws in with a device and that plenty of people will buy as a replacement because of convenience, familiarity, and indifference.

I just don't get the new Nano, it isn't a diminutive iOS device and it grew bigger. Then again all I would want is a Shuffle that has way more than 2GB, and now Apple has lost the upsell factor by canning the slightly larger older Nano. What are people's experience with refurbished iPods? The buttons on my mini are starting to fail.

Apple has made a big deal out of improvements to the stock headphones at least a couple of times in the past (from memory. Maybe it was only once, when Steve said something like, "This time we really nailed it."). And each time, they turned out to be mediocre, which I actually think is fine. I'm just saying that people shouldn't get their hopes up. They're likely a low margin item that Apple throws in with a device and that plenty of people will buy as a replacement because of convenience, familiarity, and indifference.

It's still most likely that a $15 pair of headphones off Amazon will be far more comfortable with better sound than these headphones.

I pretty much avoided anything that looked like a rumor or leak related to the iPhone 5.

I didn't want those sources to spoil the end result for me. As an aside, I've never really gotten over how Omar Little demise on The Wire was spoiled for me by a YouTube scoundrel.

But now I'm curious.

How accurate were the pre-launch iPhone 5 rumors and leaks?

Pretty good. The form factor was all leaked, including the "Lightning" connector and new earbuds, and the panorama mode shooting more recently, I think FaceTime HD was speculated. Otherwise the A6 was only known as a blurry photo (and new CPU part number in beta code) while a lot of people were expecting an A5 variant of some sort so that felt like a legitimate surprise, and don't think there were any specifics nailed down like the other camera improvements (like sapphire lens and more face detection, and stills while video shooting). There were some hopes for NFC but that was generally debunked later on.

Not sure about the iPod nano, I don't think there were any part leaks at least. The iPod touch rumors were pretty much right, although no memorable part leaks there either, maybe just the front panel. Of course the iPad mini has been rumored for a while and nothing there today, and "AirPlay Direct" (connect without a LAN, just proximity) was rumored recently too, didn't see anything about that in the liveblogs at least.

I'm sad that I'll probably have to wait several months to get an iPhone 5. Mexico (where I live) is in the "before the end of the year" countries. Which surprised me because we usually get it with the second batch of countries.

I need a new smartphone soon. My 2 year old iPhone 4 is falling apart; I scratched the camera and now it's basically useless; home button works 1/10 of the time and the battery life keeps getting worse every day.

I need it nao!! Nao!

Not literally now, but hopefully it won't take too long. I've even got a buyer for my 4.

It's a technology that Apple released for the iPhone 4 that lets it beam the iPod/Music interface over the dock connector.

Aha, very interesting, thank you. It's actually a visual interface that goes through the cable.

I thought they might have been referring to music/audio. I'm glad that's not the case, but still, I'm not sure I want to shell out $30 to help my $15 car power-and-line-level-audio adapter continue to work.

It's a technology that Apple released for the iPhone 4 that lets it beam the iPod/Music interface over the dock connector.

Aha, very interesting, thank you. It's actually a visual interface that goes through the cable.

I thought they might have been referring to music/audio. I'm glad that's not the case, but still, I'm not sure I want to shell out $30 to help my $15 car power-and-line-level-audio adapter continue to work.

$10, sure. $30, doubtful.

Yeah, it's really just an extension of video out. I'm sort of wondering if the new connector has any video out capabilities. They didn't announce a new Lightning -> VGA adapter at all. Could be a bit troublesome for people that use iPads for presentations.

I really thought they would make the iPod Touch $149 and do a one more thing and announce the iPad Mini at $199. With the way they set the prices for the new Touch, I don't see any room for them to make an iPad Mini.

Why in the world would they relegate the iPad Mini to a OMT?

Why not? Look at all the stuff they've done as part of one more thing:

Spoiler: show

Apple's return to profitability at MacWorld Expo San Francisco 1998The iMac came in colors at MacWorld San Francisco 1999The 22" Apple Cinema Display at Seybold 1999The AirPort base station and AirPort card after the iBook was introduced at MacWorld Expo New York 1999The iMac DV, iMovie, and iMac DV Special Edition in a special event in October 1999.At MacWorld SF 2000, Aqua (user interface) was introduced. Jobs announced that he would be continuing in his role at Apple on a permanent basis, dropping the "i" (for "interim") from his title "iCEO"The Power Mac G4 Cube, at MacWorld NY 2000The PowerBook G4, at MacWorld SF 2001The 17" iMac G4, at MacWorld NY 2002The Power Mac G5 at WWDC 2003The 12" Aluminum PowerBook G4 at MacWorld 2003The iPod Mini, at MacWorld 2004The iPod Shuffle, at MacWorld 2005The fifth generation iPod with video, announced at a press conference self-referentially titled "One more thing..."The MacBook Pro, at Macworld Expo 2006.Introduction of selling movies via the iTunes Store in September 2006; a second "One more thing" in the same presentation also unveiled an upcoming product dubbed iTV (renamed to Apple TV at Macworld 2007). A third "One More Thing" was the lead-in to introduce a live performance of the song "Waiting for the World to Change" by John Mayer at the conclusion of the presentation.Introduction of Safari for Windows beta, at WWDC 2007The Aluminum Unibody MacBook, at a notebook event in October 2008The video camera and speaker in the fifth generation iPod Nano at the Apple Music Event in September 2009FaceTime video calling for the iPhone 4 at WWDC 2010The Apple TV (2nd generation) running on iOS at the September 2010 Apple Music EventA revised MacBook Air at a press event entitled "Back to the Mac" in October 2010The iTunes Match service at WWDC 2011

I think you are missing the point: A footnote at the end of an iPhone presentation wouldn't give them the media splash that want/need to compete against the Fire/Nexus 7.

By all accounts, the A6 is a dual core Cortex A15 and PowerVR 6 'rogue' graphics, built at Samsung's 32nm Austin plant. This is the only way they can get higher performance (and higher graphics performance) than the A5 with better battery life.

This is a very very big deal.

the move to 32nm would give them quite a bit of room to increase clock (or go quad core) without using more battery, and it'd be very unlike apple not to trumpet the new architecture given they'd be first to market, but I want to believe.

Are you suggesting it's not? Shure, Etymotic, Ultimate Ears, etc all seem to invest significant amounts in their speakers to good result. There are additional engineering pressures in producing good results on an ultra-tight budget for a gigantic mass market. I'm certainly no expert (although I enjoy following stuff by people like NwAvGuy a bit), but my impression is that analog has always been and continues to be a bit of a black art.

Quote:

Apple is really good at passing off something an entire industry does as something they invented/thought up first.

I don't see much of that, and certainly not in the presentation there. They just said that analog was a challenge, talked a bit about what they did, and then showed why they thought it'd be good. Not like the bar was very high compared to the old buds. I do see a lot of Internet posters claim they make that claim though when they don't.

I was mostly being flip. It is hard to make good ear buds and I'm sure Apple spent a lot of time and effort to make good ear buds. That is not in dispute. I just think it odd that it got as much time as it did with a video presentation etc. It felt as though they wanted to make them a bigger deal than they were. Others have probably spent more time and can get as good if not better results. Time will tell. Engadget rated them better than the current Apple earbuds but that's about it.

The wrist strap was another head scratcher for me. Nice feature, phones and camera's have had ways to attach a strap forever. Not something I'd expect to be covered during their launch preso.

Given all the leaks and information we knew about iOS 6 maybe they were trying to fill in with more stuff to beef it up. "Look at all this cool stuff we did that you didn't know about!"

It's a technology that Apple released for the iPhone 4 that lets it beam the iPod/Music interface over the dock connector.

Aha, very interesting, thank you. It's actually a visual interface that goes through the cable.

I thought they might have been referring to music/audio. I'm glad that's not the case, but still, I'm not sure I want to shell out $30 to help my $15 car power-and-line-level-audio adapter continue to work.

$10, sure. $30, doubtful.

Yeah, it's really just an extension of video out. I'm sort of wondering if the new connector has any video out capabilities. They didn't announce a new Lightning -> VGA adapter at all. Could be a bit troublesome for people that use iPads for presentations.

I'm not liking that comment either. SO my head unit with iPod/Pandora control won't have any of that anymore? I'll have control the audio from the phone? Not horrible but not the way I like to do it. Especially if I have maps up at the same time I'm listening to music.

On the VIdeo out, if the new Lightinging connector can't do video out then there might be trouble. I think (hope) it's the adapter that can't do video out but that the new connector can do video out. If it can't then why not just use microUSB and HDMI?

By all accounts, the A6 is a dual core Cortex A15 and PowerVR 6 'rogue' graphics, built at Samsung's 32nm Austin plant. This is the only way they can get higher performance (and higher graphics performance) than the A5 with better battery life.

This is a very very big deal.

the move to 32nm would give them quite a bit of room to increase clock (or go quad core) without using more battery, and it'd be very unlike apple not to trumpet the new architecture given they'd be first to market, but I want to believe.

According to people at anandtech, it is "confirmed" to be dual A15s. It's really a pity no one was allowed to run any benchmarks on the demo units, not even a quick Sunspider javascript benchmark...

I'm very tempted to make the jump to Verizon from AT&T. We're on an AT&T family plan but this could be the first device (of many) to start that jump. My AT&T coverage isn't "bad" per se, but I don't expect AT&T LTE coverage to be good at all. In fact, LTE coverage with my iPad is pretty poor.

I guess my largest hesitation is that since they're different models entirely, it's a one-way trip. But the consensus is Verizion LTE coverage is far superior, correct?

I don't understand why they would want another proprietary connector if it didn't at least do something USB can't. I guess there's still audio line out? What's the point of it?

/me clings to his OG ipod with firewire connector.

Apple claims it's all digital... going to guess it's USB2 (2 pins) + Power (2 pins) + one lane of a high-speed interface similar to thunderbolt (4 pins, 2 pins each for transmit and receive). Since it's all digital, audio line out will require an adapter.

T-Mobile is trying to compete solely on price. That's why they didn't have 3G for so long and don't have LTE now. Right now Samsung is the only OEM that has convinced them to carry a high-end phone.

Deranged wrote:

Bugger. They just couldn't help themselves, could they, but they just had to make an already large phone larger.

The iPhone 4S was not a large phone, unless you're comparing it to feature phones.

Genome wrote:

If they announce streaming, the Spotify, Pandora and Rdio CEOs will kill themselves.

Nah. Perhaps if iOS were the largest smartphone platform.

Ulf wrote:

Fat Cat wrote:

The real under-the-radar thing seems to be the A6. If it's an A15-based SoC, Apple is 6-12 months ahead of everyone.

You make it sound like they're usually not 6-12 months ahead of everyone.

Ahead in what, specifically?

kaboom wrote:

I have a question regarding my AT&T plan:I'm probably going to be upgrading my 3GS (got it day one) and I haven't looked into plans or anything like that, but IIRC I'm grandfathered into my unlimited data plan. Does anyone know how this is going to be affected by the iPhone5? Will I simply be able to upgrade my phone and keep my plan as is or will it change because of LTE data?

I upgraded from an iPhone 4 to an LTE phone on AT&T and was able to keep my grandfathered unlimited data plan.

ClarkGoble wrote:

AT&T LTE (who is my carrier for my iPhone) is horrible coverage. Supposedly it's coming to my area "by end of 2012" but I have no idea how much of my area will actually get coverage.

On the other hand one thing I've noticed with Verizon in many areas is that even if you get LTE there's no guarantee the speed will match predictions. Often I have LTE but my iPhone on AT&T 3G seems faster.

Abulia wrote:

I'm very tempted to make the jump to Verizon from AT&T. We're on an AT&T family plan but this could be the first device (of many) to start that jump. My AT&T coverage isn't "bad" per se, but I don't expect AT&T LTE coverage to be good at all. In fact, LTE coverage with my iPad is pretty poor.

I guess my largest hesitation is that since they're different models entirely, it's a one-way trip. But the consensus is Verizion LTE coverage is far superior, correct?

It depends on your market. AT&T has great LTE coverage throughout the Houston metro area. It's also a lot faster than Verizon's LTE here.

It depends on your market. AT&T has great LTE coverage throughout the Houston metro area. It's also a lot faster than Verizon's LTE here.

One expects Dallas and Houston to have the best AT&T given it's their headquarter area. However if you look at the AT&T LTE map it's pretty limited. (They also are going out of their way to be misleading - they give the area as "4G" which is primarily their double speed 3G and then list LTE cities where as I understand it there is only a very limited area of coverage. Of course maybe I'm just grumping because Anchorage Alaska has LTE whereas a pretty high tech area like Salt Lake City doesn't.

The basic conceit of this new connector is that at any point in time, not all the pins of the 30-pin connector were active. So, if a particular use case involved the charging pins and some audio pins, or the charging pins and USB pins, why not design a system that provides just enough pins for any given use case. The iPhone senses what pins are being requested and some on-device signaling sends the necessary bits over the available pins.

By all accounts, the A6 is a dual core Cortex A15 and PowerVR 6 'rogue' graphics, built at Samsung's 32nm Austin plant. This is the only way they can get higher performance (and higher graphics performance) than the A5 with better battery life.

This is a very very big deal.

the move to 32nm would give them quite a bit of room to increase clock (or go quad core) without using more battery, and it'd be very unlike apple not to trumpet the new architecture given they'd be first to market, but I want to believe.

On the other hand they wouldn't want to make their processor appear comparable to anything else on the market. It'd go from this special custom Apple part to (eventually) the same as every other smartphone processor on the market.

Plus it'd probably be a bit of a pointlessly confusing thing for most consumers, iPhone powered by the A6 which contains the A15, faster than the A9 in the A5.

More of an "S" release? Huh? This is the biggest single upgrade we've seen in the history of the iPhone. The 3G was a new, plastic [cheaper] case, 3G cell communication, and GPS. Nothing else changes from the original. The 3GS had a significantly improved camera and new CPU/GPU architecture. The 4 was a new case design and antenna, the retina display, an again significantly improved camera, a front-facing camera, newer GSM tech, and the A4, which used the same CPU/GPU architecture as the 3GS, but faster and more power efficient. 4S had yet another significantly improved camera, antenna improvements (technically started with the Verizon iPhone 4), still more GSM improvements, new CPU/GPU architecture, and Siri.

The 5? Bigger screen, new display tech, new case design, new CPU architecture (first on the market to use the A15 as best anyone can tell), significant GPU improvements, significant improvements to the camera's optics, a new connector, LTE, and even a better speaker. Every single major component is significantly improved compared to the 4S. Grips about lacking certain pet features, about Apple still having a relatively conservative design, or anything else. I'm disappointed that the vaunted new, biggest screen is just 170 extra vertical pixels with nothing else. But if you don't consider the 5 to be a major upgrade I'm wondering what needs to change to qualify as major?